Translating Libyan-Tuareg Cultural Specific Items into English

Abstract

This paper studies how Ibrahim Al-Koni’s Cultural Specific Items (CSI) in his short story al-lisan that  appeared in the short stories collection Kharif al-darwish (Autumn of the Dervish) (1994) are rendered into English. The Target Text is the English translation Tongue by Elliot Colla. The CSIs are identified and classified according to Eugene Nida’s categorization of culture: (1) ecology, (2) material culture, (3) social culture, (4) religious culture and (5) linguistic culture. The translation procedures used are analyzed according to Jean-Paul Vinay and Jean Darbelnet’s classification of translation strategies covering seven procedures, (i) direct translation, which covers borrowing, calque and literal translation and (ii) oblique translation which is transposition, modulation, equivalence and adaptation. The study aimed to find out how Libyan-Tuareg CSIs are handled in translation. The findings demonstrated that oblique translation strategies are used more frequently than direct translation strategies.